"How DARE Eden point out all of those scandalous photographs to us! What an attention whore!"

Are you annoyed yet? Because I can keep going if you want.

What if I were to add another photo?

Are you fully irritated yet?
What if I had a longer skirt on?

Still too slutty?

Would it help if I portrayed myself in a classier manner?

That's not any better?

What if I were fully covered by winter clothes?

What if I just gave up and got into pajamas instead?

There, I put those sweat pants on and snapped a picture just for you.

I may have posed a bit just to add to my point.

Although, the sweatpants probably won't even help because a few of you were annoyed with me for posting a picture of myself, fully clothed, and wearing a raincoat in the post "At Least It's Not An Umbrella" and you really can't get any less sexy than I was in that photo.

So...I'm confused.

It's not just the scantily clad pictures that bother people, it's any pictures of me at all.

Actually, they don't seem to bother people, they bother women.

Of the 180 posts I've written, is it the handful of posts with pictures of me in them that make some of my women readers the most irritated.

So let me get this straight; I can come on here and talk about child abuse, rape, domestic abuse, parental abandonment, drug addiction, and other uncomfortable topics, but it's the photographs of me that cause women to recoil in horror and call me all sorts of fun and nifty little names such as "attention seeker," "narcissistic," and "egotistical."

Interesting.

I think what astounds me the most is that on this blog I pretty much let all my ugly hang out. I make fun of myself, point out my flaws, and I let you all get a good laugh at my expense. I consistently show you the worst parts of me and let you in on situations that definitely don't make me look all that stellar. In nearly every serious post I talk about how broken I feel and how I'm struggling. I talk about learning to accept myself again and I encourage you to except who you are. We talk about learning to love our bodies after abuse and just learning to love our bodies in general. We talk about being proud of our physical appearance and sexuality and I remind you to never let anyone else define who you are.

But if I actually happen to be as comfortable with my body as I would like all women to be, OH THE HORROR.
I'm not egotistical about my looks, in fact as I said in another post I think I fall somewhere within the category of "she's cute but not unapproachably gorgeous." in other words, I figure I'm pretty average. What I am however, is comfortable and accepting of who I am; inside and out. I've already proven by this entire blog that I no longer feel the need to hide away parts of me that aren't perfect, mind and body included.

My whole mission on this blog has been to empower you to love you, to be proud of you, to accept you, yet I get chastised for taking my own advice (But if I didn't take my own advice, I would be chastised for being a hypocrite, so really this is a lose/lose situation for me).

I have made fun of my tiny boobs (I don't have much more than a handful, I'm a small chick) and I told you about the time a renowned plastic surgeon told me that my ears stick out. In fact I've consistently talked about how I truly believe there are no ugly people, that we are all beautiful in our own right, and that I wish everyone could see that. Yet by believing the same things for myself that I believe to be true for all women, I have been inadvertently pissing some of you off when I choose to include my body as a part of everything else I share with you.

For those of you who read the post "And Before I Knew It My Boobs Were On The News" you know that I've already made peace with how I portray my body/sexuality to the world so I don't really feel like we need to cover that topic again. If you haven't read that post I would suggest popping over there and checking it out before continuing on because we are going to skip right over why I feel comfortable with how I portray my body and jump right into asking why some of you are uncomfortable with my body.

This whole situation has really got me thinking about why it is that we as a society— women in particular— are so bothered by other women's physical self confidence. I'm not even specifically talking about women that choose to dress in revealing attire or women who choose careers in the sex industry, I'm just talking about women in general that are confident in their appearance.

We applaud women for their achievements in education, their high profile careers, their lucrative political positions, but the women that choose to show confidence in their bodies, well we just can't have that.Oftentimes many of us judge her while hiding behind a cloak of feminism, saying "we don't like it when she shows off her body because it objectifies women and we don't want to be labeled by our bodies!"

But isn't that exactly what we are doing, labeling her by how she portrays her body?

Women have turned on their own gender, forget men, now we as women are reducing ourselves down to nothing but an appearance.

I was thinking about this and then something dawned on me.

We aren't bothered by all women being proud of what they have, just some women.

Do you remember the Dove campaign for real beauty? It had an ad that featured gorgeous women of different shapes and sizes in their underwear, all of whom were proud of their bodies. Women across the nation went crazy, they loved that "regular, everyday" women were staking their claim in the beauty department. They loved that these women were standing up and claiming that they beautiful. (Which they are!)

Somehow I do not think that people would have had the same reaction if it were a group of Victoria's Secret underwear models self proclaiming their beauty.

Why is it that women are celebrated for their body confidence, as long as they aren't too confident? "Yes, you think you are beautiful and that's wonderful, but if this becomes a regular thing I'm not going to like your self confidence too much youegotistical bitch."

I really don't think our problems with female displays of sexuality are about not wanting to be objectified by men anymore, I think a lot of it has turned into women competing with other women.

Let's face it, I would venture to say that the vast majority of women in this world would like to look good. Most of us would be happy to feel pleased with the way we look, yet do we, as women understand that and build each other up?

Noooo, we tear each other down.

"Ashley thinks she looks so damn good in that dress, what a slut. Katie always wears such low cut shirts, what the hell is she trying to prove?"

We applaud women for their intelligence but we, we as women, judge them for their physical appearance just as much, if not more, then men do. We as women fight together be equal to men, but when it comes to our physical qualities we fight against each other. We've made it all about competition and jealousy and to the women that have said "fuck it, I'm happy with how I look" we tear them down and try to bring them back to the where we think they should be.

Can you imagine a world where women felt confident in their skin because their gender equals made them feel that way? The first thing many of us do in the morning is to prep our bodies to go out into the world. We take a shower, pick out some clothes, do our hair, apply make-up, and then we get ready to face the day. Wouldn't it be amazing if every morning you faced the day with confidence? If you looked in the mirror, saw your beautiful self, and then set out to leave our mark on the world?

I would venture to say that we would be an even more productive gender if we all had the confidence to go after what we wanted, confidence that we as women strip away from each other on a daily basis.

Most people would say that the need to throw rocks at another women's self confidence stems from feelings of insecurity and jealousy. If we don't feel great about ourselves, we don't want others to feel great about themselves either because then we perceive them as thinking that they are better than us.

I love my friends because we are all cut from the same cloth. If you overheard us talking you would probably think we were all gay. I have a best friend that has the best boobs I have ever seen in my life. Even as a totally straight women I think I comment on their amazingness every single time I see her because they are just that good and she in turn is always commenting on my legs. Together we feel pretty damn good about ourselves even though we really couldn't look any different. My eyes are a piercing blue while hers are a stunning shade of brown. I am a few inches tall than her and she is several shades darker than me. She wishes for my waistline and I would love to have her gorgeous hair.

We are not the same, yet we are equally beautiful in our own right. Together we remind each other to put our best face forward; our face of confidence and self acceptance.

So again I ask you, what might we gain if we set down our shields and started praising each other? What would we gain if we as women encouraged each other to be proud of who we are not just intellectually, but physically as well?

We would probably bring our gender up a few notches in almost every department, because as the basis of every Disney movie out there reminds us, only when you believe in yourself can you really reach your full potential.

We blame men for holding us back, but we are doing a pretty damn good job of holding ourselves back.

So I guess my question is, when we see a women who is confident in her appearance, shouldn't our reaction be more of "good for her" and less of "who does she think she is?" Why do we cheer for the previously less confident but when someone fully accepts their beauty, we trash them?

Do women not realize that it's not an all or nothing situation? If someone is beautiful, sexy, confident, do you realize that it does not in any way lessen who you are?

We as women have the power to stop a lot of the problems our gender has. We have the power to empower women to expect more for ourselves. We have the power to build up our self esteems to the point where we don't chase an ego booster from men. We have the power to demand respect for our bodies. This is nothing new, we have known that for years, but when women whole heartedly embrace themselves, we as women judge them.

It makes me sad that here, on my own blog, where I routinely point out all my flaws, where I spend a vast majority of my time reminding women to love themselves, where I've never claimed to be anything other than equal, have I been labeled with a few really nasty names for embracing who I am in body as well as soul.

We as women have fought to be seen for who we are beyond our physical appearance, but maybe it's time to stop fighting our physical appearances and embrace them, all of them, for all of us.

It's not until we truly love ourselves as equals, will we ever really be an equal gender.

So despite what you think of me, smile because I think you're gorgeous! When you finally see that and fully accept it, I'm going to give your sexy ass a great big high-five because there is nothing more that I want for you, than for you to see how beautifully amazing you really are.

I challenge you to hesitate in your judgments of the way other women view themselves. Cheer them on when they are down and when they finally stand up instead of muttering in their shadows, consider it a job well done and stand up beside them.

It is only when we are all standing together will we truly be a united front.

44 comments:

I had no idea that you were getting flak for being attractive, Eden! It really is just envy. Because you are pretty and fit. Most people aren't as fit and being downtrodden it's even harder. I think, many people see you as amazing, and think that you can only be so happy and resilient and have good things happen for you because you are attractive. So abused women who aren't feel bad because they can't recover in the same way. (I guess I envy never occurred to me because I am relatively attractive.) Your blog tries to send a healing message out to everyone, but it IS also your personal blog only written by you so it's reasonable that you would post pictures of yourself now and then. Thank you for telling us we are all beautiful! Ladies, I know you may not believe it, but men have a lot lower standards of beauty than you hold other women up to. If your goal is to get a man, don't worry!

I guess I never really thought of it that way either. I mean in all honesty I consider myself to be average looking, I just have the self acceptance of a runway model and that seems to piss people off. I just with everyone could see how TRULY beautiful they are!! We are all amazing, inside and out. Screw society's standards, they are often unattainable and we all deserve better than to be made to feel "less than."

I've read your blog from the beginning and I agree with the commentor above me, this is YOUR blog, of COURSE you are going to write about you and include pictures of yourself. You put pictures in here of EVERYTHING (how do you have so many pictures of your entire life!?) so naturally some are going to be of you.

I've never been made to feel as if you are flaunting yourself or your beauty (you are very pretty and it is probably why you get the hateful comments), if anything I have felt an enormous amount of self acceptance for ALL women from you, never an air of "I'm so pretty, look at me." I love how you can make fun of yourself and at the same time be so accepting of who you are.

I know that isn't the point of this post but I just wanted to throw that out there.

I love that you put pictures of yourself on your blog and the confidence you have in your body. I wish more women felt that way. My friends and I are always complimenting each other and I have been known to give random compliments to women in public places. I have never understood the idea that looks and achievements as an either or thing. We are whole people and should be able to enjoy ourselves as such.

Every woman has the ability to look great after kids. Some have to work harder than others (say if, for example, you don't have genetics on your sided) but effort is effort. Eden, and by extension her kids, eat healthy (gluten-free, organic), she works out. Her body wasn't a free pass so why put it out like it was!

Haha, there's like four different conversations going on here. Either way, thank you very much :) I work really hard but it's not for my physical appearance as much as it is that I'm the only one these kids have, I need to stay healthy! :)

Actually every woman can't look 'great' after kids. what the hell is 'great looking' anyway. We are all different, shapes, sizes, colors. Behave nicely, kindly, be clean, wear clothing that fits and is modest....look your best. To say that all women can 'still look great after having kids' is in itself a shame based judgement...am I fat because I don't work hard enough? If I work harder, will my boobs perk up? will the stretch marks and scars go away? No....not even all of the fat or flab. Sometime it's about the package itself, not the wrapping. (the person, not the skin, boobs, cheekbones etc....)

mm yeah, it's insecurity. did you hear this week's This American Life? interesting segment on a woman who got horrible comments from trolls every day, and when one of them went too far she wrote about him and he actually revealed himself to apologize. then she interviews him on air! turns out: surprise surprise, he was fat/insecure and was enraged that she was fat/happy with her body and herself. also, there's a big difference between posting underwear photos on facebook, and putting them here in a greater context of your personal story and how far you've come. i'm typing this out because although it may be obvious, it's really become clear to me through this post. i never would have written anything negative about your selfies, but i may have rolled my eyes a few times in the past. "yeah we get it eden, you're skinny." i do thank you for this post. although you're in a bit of a no-win situation: if you avoid the issue that helps nobody; if you embrace it you'll enrage the insecure masses. i hope many besides me found greater acceptance of your sexy-self-lovin' through this post. also, i hear you on the bellybutton (have 3 little kids). it used to be such a different shape!

Ok so I downloaded the episode after reading your comment and am about halfway through it. I love This American Life. Did you listen to Serial??

Oddly enough considering all the photo's I have on here I've only ever posted one selfie on my facebook (and I am a fairly active facebook user) and I did so with the caption of "so I haven't made an appearance on my own page in like 3 years and if I friend anyone new they are going to think I'm still pregnant, so here is a shameless selfie pic just to update my album." haha. Yes, I post pics on this blog, but I share SO many more important things than my body on here, but yes, sometimes my body is relevant to the topic.

i did listen to serial. it's frustrating having so much information and no idea what really happened! i've listened to a lot of TAL, radiolab and moth radio hour... any recommendations for new shows/podcasts? those with a ridiculous sense of humor might appreciate "Throwing Shade" while working or cleaning house!

Yes I wanted a real ending! Like a "tie it all up and this is what happened" ending! That was actually my first podcast and then I downloaded the trolling one. I need more recommendations myself. I'll have to Savage Lovecast.

I think I would have a bigger problem with you if you never posted anything un flattering about yourself, but you are always making fun of yourself and you even posted that goofy picture with the hair removal cream so I think you're alright in my book

Hi Eden, I love what you wrote! You are so right. We are so cruel to each other and it needs to stop! I have never understood why as women we do not bond together and uplift each other! I have never understood why some women think it is okay to sleep around with someone else's husband or run over another womens feelings just to make themselves feel better. We as women could be such an unstoppable force if we would just care about each other! Thank you for bringing this out in the open to talk about! You just keep doing what you do and do not let the haters get you down! You have a God given purpose and you need to continue on with the gifts you have been given! Rock on Eden! Your Internet Wing Sister, Michele

I can't imagine how awesome we would be if we stuck together more. Troops in battle, they don't care what their differences are, they fight together through thick and thin, always cheering each other on, never leaving anyone behind, and here our gender is fighting a very real battle at home and we aren't even going at it as a united front. :(

So up until the poster above, I think almost all of you missed the main point of Eden's post....And in fact, a lot of you proved it. Eden wants to talk about why we as women constantly judge and belittle other women, rather than building them up. Even if you all aren't belittling her, you're still judging and categorizing her based on her appearance. Pre kids, post kids, healthy diet, not healthy diet, her blog, her body, her pics, blah blah blah.

I'm no angel. I'm just as guilty of looking at another female and instantly judging her based on her physical appearance, what she's wearing, or who she's hanging out with. Sometimes, that "other female" is the one I see in the mirror. If we're going to say we are striving to be unconditionally loving and accepting of ourselves, we'd sure as shit better be willing to say we are striving to be the same of others. Because personally, who gives a fuck if I love the shit of my own body but I'm a total bitch to everyone else because of theirs? It's great to say we love ourselves, but the rubber really hits the road in how we treat other people. Unless you're a hermit(ess) who lives in a cave and never interacts with other human beings, how we treat other people in our lives matters. It defines us as people, and as members of a society.

How different would our society be if we instantly took in each others' attributes, instead of each others' flaws? Looked for the ways in which we are similar instead of the ways in which we are different? I don't pretend to know the answer, but I'd sure like to find out.

I can't even imagine how awesome we would be, not just as a gender but as a species if we looked for our positive attributes before our flaws.

As you pointed out, the same goes for how we look at ourselves in the mirror. Courage and acceptance start at home. When you accept yourself, it's a lot easier to accept other people because you can do so without feeling challanged by them.

I'll never understand why women have to put other women down for their looks. We get it enough from the opposite sex, and have since pretty much the beginning of time. Why do we have to do it to each other? Can't we band together and accept that women are women and we come in all different shapes and sizes and who the f*** cares? We're ALL beautiful. Let's leave it at that.

It's YOUR freaking blog. Of course you should write about yourself and post pictures of yourself if you want. Because, hello? EDEN'S BLOG!

And as far as showing too much skin...well, you just can't please everyone. Did you hear the story about the girl in Utah who was told to cover herself up because her dress was too revealing?

Average looking?! P'shaw woman! You look fantastic! That being said, the pictures of you have nothing to do with why I read your blog. I've heard that there are apparnetly other places on the Internet where one can find pictures of pretty women.

Just as I'm sure everyone else here, I read your blog because what you say is important to me. I don't always agree with you, but I never finish reading a post without learning something I didn't know before.

So keep on writing what you want to write and posting pictures that you want to show!

Me Defined

My husband said he was going to the store... and never came back. It's been a crazy life that's left me functional enough to survive yet dysfunctional enough to make me funny. I'm living my life devoid of most social graces while single parenting two young children, and I absolutely love it....most days.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to "It Is Not My Shame to Bear" with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.